RADIATION LEVELS AT ISSUE IN LAWSUIT

Sailors with San Diego-based carrier helped Japan during nuclear disaster

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN (March 23, 2011) – Air Department Sailors scrub down the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) with brushes during a countermeasure wash-down in the coastal waters of northern Japan. Ronald Reagan is off the coastline of Japan to provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance as directed in support of Operation Tomodachi. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd/Released)

+Read Caption

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN (March 23, 2011) – Air Department Sailors scrub down the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) with brushes during a countermeasure wash-down in the coastal waters of northern Japan. Ronald Reagan is off the coastline of Japan to provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance as directed in support of Operation Tomodachi. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd/Released)

Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, off the coast of Japan, scrubbed the flight deck
during a wash-down in March 2011 to remove potential radiation contamination. Nicholas A. Groesch • U.S. Navy

+Read Caption

Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, off the coast of Japan, scrubbed the flight deck
during a wash-down in March 2011 to remove potential radiation contamination. Nicholas A. Groesch • U.S. Navy

For more than three weeks following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, U.S. Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper set off a contamination warning when she left the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan.

A hand-held Geiger counter beeped when it passed over her, and she had to surrender a glove and boots more than once.

So perhaps it’s no wonder that Cooper, 23, and seven other Reagan sailors think that physical ailments since then are due to exposure to radioactive material from the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Eight sailors have filed a lawsuit against the Japanese power company, alleging that officials lied about the amount of leakage. It says the Navy used the company’s reports in its own calculations about the safety of U.S. sailors in the relief effort, called Operation Tomodachi.

The sailors describe rectal bleeding and other gastrointestinal trouble, unremitting headaches, hair loss and fatigue. Their lawyer says some already have thyroid and gallbladder cancer. All are in their 20s. One sailor, who was ordered to clean the Reagan’s air ducts, vomited soon after and felt sick enough to ask to leave the ship, the attorney said.

A ninth plaintiff in the suit is the 1-year-old daughter of a female sailor who didn’t know she was pregnant at the time. Pregnant mothers and children are more vulnerable to radiation.

But, contrary to what these sailors are experiencing, studies have found ﻿largely nondangerous radiation levels since the 2011 spill. Only workers at the nuclear facility have exhibited radiation amounts high enough to make them even slightly sick, scientists consulted for this article said.

One UC San Diego toxicology expert said that acute illness usually comes on quickly — in days or weeks — after massive exposure. Signs include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Unless there are fatalities, people feel better within a few months. So, with typical radiation sickness, these Reagan sailors wouldn’t still have symptoms today.

Long-term illnesses, such as cancer, may result from a smaller amount of radiation exposure, but the amount required to cause them is unclear. And that type of ailment wouldn’t come on this soon, less than two years after the incident, said Dr. Richard Clark, director of UC San Diego’s medical toxicology program.

“What I imagine happened in this case is these people developed a few symptoms and they started to get worried about it because they were told there was some higher radiation,” Clark said. “They scrubbed off the (Reagan’s) deck — that is normal procedure if there is fallout. But that fallout doesn’t mean you were exposed to levels of radiation that were dangerous.”

At a Health Physics Society conference last year at the National Press Club, a panel of radiation scientists predicted that illness from Fukushima would be far less than from the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster.

That’s because researchers knew enough in 2011 to advise people to stay indoors to avoid the passing radiation plume from the plant and to not consume food or milk or water from the region that might be contaminated.

Fewer than 150 of 17,000 workers at the Fukushima plant showed slightly elevated levels of radiation, according to figures from cancer specialist Dr. John Boice, a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. The doses detected might increase their lifetime risk of cancer by 2 percent, he said at the Press Club conference.

On the Reagan, the crew was ordered to close hatches and vents to prevent outside air from entering. They were also told not to drink the ship’s potable water.

The environmental lawyer representing the Reagan sailors said their radiation exposure exceeded the acceptable level, but he declined to place a figure on how much he suspects they received.

Attorney Paul Garner said he is awaiting disclosure from the Pentagon, the Navy and Japan about what their instruments showed. The Japanese Fukushima Daiichi power plant, on the coast 150 miles northeast of Tokyo, is owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco.

“We know it was higher levels than have been initially reported by the Tepco people as being low-dose,” Garner said. “It’s much worse than those who got radiation poisoning in Chernobyl and survived for a few years.”

The U.S. Defense Department has created a registry for the 70,000 Pentagon-affiliated people who were in Japan or off the coast during the first three months of the disaster. A website for this registry said that it would provide radiation exposure estimates for all 70,000 by the end of 2012.

However, figures for U.S. Navy ships serving off the coast of Japan — including the Reagan and the San Diego-based warships Preble and Chancellorsville, plus the carrier George Washington and amphibious ship Essex, among several other American military vessels — are not yet available on the website.

The Navy’s largest ship base in Japan — in Yokosuka, about 185 miles southwest of the nuclear plant — measured levels that are minimal and well below dangerous, according to Pentagon figures.

Helicopters from the Reagan flew search-and-rescue missions over Japan in the days after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. In April 2011, Camp Pendleton Marines from the Essex went ashore to help clear debris on Oshima, an island 45 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.

Garner said he plans to file additional lawsuits on behalf of other Navy and Marine Corps personnel who are now sick after Operation Tomodachi. The first lawsuit was filed Dec. 21 in San Diego federal court, and he expects to lodge a second there. Others may come in other jurisdictions.

The lawyer said he and his partners have launched a medical study of American personnel involved in the rescue mission. Calling it Operation Tomodachi Revisited, he said it is open to more participants at no cost to the service member. Blood tests will be taken.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Pentagon officials released a statement saying that the Navy took “proactive measures” to safeguard sailors.

With more than 5,000 people aboard, the Reagan was operating at sea about 100 miles northeast of the power plant after the earthquake.

Despite the ship passing through a plume of radioactivity, officials pegged the maximum exposure to the crew at less than the radiation received from a month’s exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil and the sun.

The Navy’s statement said that “most of this radioactivity did not deposit on the ship as the ship sailed through the plume and the very low levels of residual radioactivity that did deposit on the ship were mitigated and controlled.”

Cooper said she participated in one flight deck wash-down that occurred after the Reagan’s radiation alarms went off a few days into Operation Tomodachi. A Navy photo shows sailors, some with scarves worn across their faces and mouths, pushing brooms to scrub the deck with soap and water. Garner said the Navy used seawater for that cleanup.

Meanwhile, the tsunami’s waves breached the power plant, then washed back into the sea. A paper published by Stanford University in July estimated that most of the radioactivity went into the Pacific, and only 19 percent of the released material was deposited over land.

Two days after the disaster, the Navy said it had repositioned the Reagan after detecting low levels of contamination in the air and on 17 aircrew members who flew relief missions. Previously, the carrier had been downwind from the nuclear site.

Some aircrews were given iodine pills to combat the potential danger of radioactive iodide particles released by the plant. Garner said his clients — seven boatswain’s mates who worked on the flight deck and an air-decontamination specialist — weren’t offered iodine, he said.

At the time, the Reagan’s skipper, Capt. Thom Burke, released a statement reassuring crew families that “as a nuclear-power aircraft carrier, we have extensive technical expertise onboard to properly monitor such types of risks.”

Garner said he believes the skipper as far as the carrier’s own nuclear reactors are monitored constantly for leaks.

“However, I would love to see his data of readings on the crewmen,” the lawyer said.

If he wins for his nine plaintiffs, Garner is seeking $10 million per client plus a $30 million punitive judgment against Tepco.

The lawsuit also demands that the power company establish a $100 million fund to cover the sailors’ medical expenses.